My wife and I prefer thick-sliced bacon when we have bacon, and I have taken to convection-baking it in the oven due to the slices necessary to feed us & the Boyz (1st grader & pre-schooler).

The other day I picked up a pound-&-a-half of thick sliced bacon and casually noted it was "maple cured". Without really thinking about it, I knew the packer had simply added some chemical to the pork for flavoring.

I have to think something went wrong at the packing plant because the cooking bacon filled the house with an intense maple flavor, and the cooked bacon had waaaaay too much maple flavor.

Whatever maple-flavored chemical the packer used apparently coated my oven as it took four more oven-cooked meals before the house stopped smelling like maple.

That in itself is irritating, but I posted this warning because I ended up having to throw out the bacon grease because it was way too maple flavored for use in anything else.

Here in Alabama, we don't throw out bacon grease without a really good reason. This particular batch of bacon grease qualified.

That's a real bummer Tom,
I bet maple smoked bacon would be a nice mild smokey flavor as compared to commercial so called maple cured bacon. Live and learn I guess. Round here, I prefer the hickory smoked slab bacon that we get from the butcher shop as compared to the stuff that they sell here in the grocery store. The commercial stuff just doesn't seam to cook up right. Too much moisture maybe?

__________________"You wouldn't know a diamond if you held it in your hand. The things you think are precious I can't understand" STEELY DAN.

tom, i have sort of the opposite problem with maple cured bacon i've had recently. while there's been a pleasant maple aroma wafting from the kitchen, there never seems to be enough maple flavor in the meat.

i know what you mean about permeating smells, tho. i won't make duck in the house anymore for the same reason.

i'd love a good maple-y chunk o' cured pig belly. and any leftovers would go straight into baked beans.

jenny, i hope when i die someday, it's with a mouthful of bacon dripping with maple syrup.

__________________
The next time someone asks what you did this past weekend, squint really hard and say, "Why, what did you hear?"